Reward-Related Suppression of Neural Activity in Macaque Visual Area V4.
Cereb Cortex
; 30(9): 4871-4881, 2020 07 30.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32350517
ABSTRACT
In order for organisms to survive, they need to detect rewarding stimuli, for example, food or a mate, in a complex environment with many competing stimuli. These rewarding stimuli should be detected even if they are nonsalient or irrelevant to the current goal. The value-driven theory of attentional selection proposes that this detection takes place through reward-associated stimuli automatically engaging attentional mechanisms. But how this is achieved in the brain is not very well understood. Here, we investigate the effect of differential reward on the multiunit activity in visual area V4 of monkeys performing a perceptual judgment task. Surprisingly, instead of finding reward-related increases in neural responses to the perceptual target, we observed a large suppression at the onset of the reward indicating cues. Therefore, while previous research showed that reward increases neural activity, here we report a decrease. More suppression was caused by cues associated with higher reward than with lower reward, although neither cue was informative about the perceptually correct choice. This finding of reward-associated neural suppression further highlights normalization as a general cortical mechanism and is consistent with predictions of the value-driven attention theory.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Recompensa
/
Atención
/
Corteza Visual
/
Señales (Psicología)
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
Límite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Cereb Cortex
Asunto de la revista:
CEREBRO
Año:
2020
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Alemania